Hot on the heels of the IT industry's Reform Government Surveillance group open letter to the US Government yesterday, today a group of 560 international authors from 81 countries, including 5 Nobel Laureates delivered a letter to the United Nations petitioning for international law to protect the digital rights of humans everywhere.
While we might welcome the letter from the IT industry group as helpful pressure to focus US government attention on the problem, a deep dive into the content of that letter and the supporting manifesto revels the basically self-serving nature of it including some proposals that are actually counter to the interests of private citizens and well as the rule of law by sovereign nations that might impose laws to protect their citizens in the absence of international law. Should we expect more from multinational corporations that appropriate the data of internet users to generate profits often in ways arguably worse than the NSA in a WoW chatroom?
The writers deliver. Writing in the abstract yet connecting the dots, the petition cuts to the heart of the abuses perpetuated by governments and corporations alike, calling on them in equal measure to respect the basic human rights of all people regardless of nationality.
In doing so, they not only protect (in principle) the commercial interests elaborated by the industry in a self-serving fashion, but turn the knife on the industry with words that would protect private citizens rights from the abuses of corporations.
I guess we can say, never send a corporate lawyer to do a writer's job, LOL.
Rather than waste space with my own opinions, please go over the fold for a transcript of the letter and links, they do a far better than I ever could.
Thanks for your comments too.
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